When an application calls a drawing function to paint a shape, Windows positions a brush at the start of the paint operation and maps a pixel in the brush bitmap to the window origin of the client area. (The window origin is the upper-left corner of the window's client area.) The coordinates of the pixel that Windows maps are called the brush origin.
The default brush origin is located in the upper-left corner of the brush bitmap at the coordinates (0,0). Windows then copies the brush across the client area, forming a pattern that is as tall as the bitmap. The copy operation continues, row by row, until the entire client area is filled. However, the brush pattern is visible only within the boundaries of the specified shape. (Here, the term bitmap is used in its most literal sense — as an arrangement of bits — and does not refer exclusively to bits stored in an image file).
There are instances when the default brush origin should not be used. For example, it may be necessary for an application to use the same brush to paint the backgrounds of its parent and child windows and blend a child window's background with that of the parent window.